Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Mission To Paris

Set in Paris, movie star Fredric Stahl, twice nominated for an Oscar, steps smartly into the caldron of late 1930s Europe. "I was born in Vienna, wandered about the world for a time, lived and worked in Paris, then, in the summer of 1930, Hollywood. I'm an American now," Stahl tells a woman he meets on a ship sailing to Paris.

Some excerpts to get you enthralled in this period thriller:

In Paris, the evenings of September are sometimes warm, excessively gentle, and, in the magic particular to that city, irresistibly seductive. The autumn of the year 1938 began in just such weather and on the terraces of the best cafes, in the famous restaurants, at the dinner parties one wished to attend, the conversation was, of necessity, lively and smart: fashion, cinema, love affairs, politics, and, yes, the possibility of war — that too had its moment.

...he didn't want to work - the light fading outside the window, the gathering dusk, had reached him. It was l'heure bleue - time to be meeting a lover, looking for one. Well, he had nowhere to go. He put the script aside, went to the desk, found Hotel Claridge stationary and began to write a letter...

..."You're staying at the Claridge?" she said. "I just love that hotel, so much quieter than the Ritz."

A glass of champagne was put in his hand, a silver tray of caviar blini flew past. "They certainly make you comfortable," Stahl said.

...The cocktail party was in the drawing room, where splendid old paintings in elaborate gold frames - lords and ladies and cherubs and a few bare breasts - hung on the boiserie; walnut paneling that covered the walls. It was a stiff, formal room, with draperies of forest-green velvet, maroon taffeta upholstery, spindly chairs from royal times - chanting in chorus don't dare sit on me - and a mirror-polished eighteenth-century parquet floor. Against one wall, a huge marble-topped hunting table with gilt legs, a place to toss your pheasants when you came in from the field...If this room didn't intimidate you, Stahl thought, nothing would...

Like mysterious train station rendevous essential to any noirish thriller...

Exotic spies right and left, naf main character Frederic Stahl gets in over his head and it's fun to follow his toings and froings...

The perfect place to read Mission To Paris would be hanging out at a cafe nursing one cup of Joe all day, which by the way, Furst tells us, became a habit with Parisians who often had no heating at home back then. Who knew?

I am also an Alan Furst fan and did enjoy the suspense and atmosphere of Mission to Paris.

Think that Mr Furst might have already made his promo tour round the bookshops, but perhaps next time I will get to ask him a question or three.

I do like his books.

Don't you think that in NYC (with its overheated apartments)lots of coffee places ...Starbucks and the more attractive spots, find favor with folks who just need to get out of their tiny apartments, or away from their rent-sharing roommates?

I wonder about your Starbucks theory..Is Starbucks our cafes?Not much people watching in those darkened lairs IMHO.Nothing like the cafe chairs lined up to face the rue and who really works in a cafe besides the waiters?